REVISING STYLE

From The Craft of Research by Booth, Colomb,

and Williams

TOO COMPLEX OR TOO SIMPLE?

Too precise a specification of information-processing
requirements incurs a risk of a decision-makers overor under-estimation, resulting in the inefficient use of
costly resources. Too little precision in specifying
needed processing capacity gives no indication with
respect to the procurement of needed resources.
A person making decisions sometimes specifies what
he need to process information. He may do so too
precisely. He may over- or under-estimate the
resources that he needs. When he does that, he may
use costly resources inefficiently. He may also fail to
be precise enough. He may not indicate which
resources others should procure.

BETTER?

When a decision-maker specifies too precisely the

resources he needs to process information, he
may over- or under-estimate them and thereby
use costly resources inefficiently. But if he is not
precise enough, he may not indicate which
resources to procure.
Aim for clear communication by avoiding overly
complex or overly simple sentences.

SUBJECTS

Which sentences are clearer?

Locke

frequently repeated himself because he did not

trust the power of words to name things accurately.
The reason for Lockes frequent repetition lies in his
distrust of the accuracy of the naming power of words.
If rainforests are stripped to serve short-term economic
interests, the earths biosphere may be damaged.
The stripping of rain forests in the service of short-term
economic interests could result in damage to the earths
biosphere.

Make the main characters in your story the subjects

of your sentences. Then your subjects will be short,
specific, and concrete.
Try to avoid abstract subjects.

USE NOMINALIZATIONS
CAREFULLY
Verb

Nominalization

Adjective

Nominalization

Decide

Decision

Precise

Precision

Fail

Failure

Frequent

Frequency

Resist

Resistance

Intelligent

Intelligence

Nominalizations are usually more difficult to understand

Thus:
Use flesh-and-blood subjects if possible. Subjects should be
the main characters of your writing.
Express important actions as verbs.

CHARACTERS
The clearest characters are flesh-and-blood
people
Yet your writing may deal with abstract
characters: thought disorders, demographic
changes, social mobility, isotherms, gene pools
Choose the characters that are important to your
paper, even if they are abstract nominalizations.
Examples:

The

hospitalization of patients without appropriate

treatment results in unreliable measurement of
outcomes.
We cannot measure outcomes reliably when patients
are hospitalized but not treated appropriately.

MAIN CHARACTERS
Decide who or what is the main character of each
sentence or of your paper as a whole:
Examples:

rainforests are stripped to serve short-term economic

interests, the earths biosphere may be damaged.

If

developers strip rain forests to serve short-term economic

interests, they may damage the earths biosphere.

If

loggers strip rain forests to serve short-term economic

interests, they may damage the earths biosphere.

If

farmers strip rain forests to serve short-term economic

interests, they may damage the earths biosphere.

If

Brazil strips its rain forests to serve short-term economic

interests, it may damage the earths biosphere.

If

OLD BEFORE NEW

A.

B.

Because the naming power of words was distrusted by

Locke, he repeated himself often. Seventeenth-century
theories of language, especially Wilkinss scheme for a
universal language involving the creation of countless
symbols for countless meanings, had centered on this
naming power. A new era in the study of language that
focused on the ambiguous relationship between sense
and reference begins with Lockes distrust.
Locke often repeated himself because he distrusted the
naming power of words. This naming power had been
central to seventeenth-century theories of language,
especially Wilkinss scheme for a universal language
involving the creation of countless symbols for
countless meanings. Lockes distrust begins a new era
in the study of language, one that focused on the
ambiguous relationship between sense and reference.

OLD BEFORE NEW

If sentences begin with familiar ideas, readers
understand them more easily.
Diagnose:

Identify

the main ideas in the first seven words of

each sentence
Are these familiar to the reader?
Do readers know them from context?
Do readers know them from previous sentences?

Revise:
Put

familiar information near the beginning of

sentences
Put new, unpredictable, or complex information later
in the sentences

ACTIVE AND PASSIVE

General rule: avoid passive verbs
Yet Booth et al. say: Begin with familiar subjects, even
if it means using a passive verb.
Examples:

The

quality of our air and even the climate of the world

depend on healthy rain forests in Asia, Africa, and South
America. But the increased demand for more land for
agricultural use and for wood products for construction
worldwide now threatens these forests with destruction.
The quality of our air and even the climate of the world
depend on healthy rain forests in Asia, Africa, and South
America. But these rain forests are now threatened with
destruction by the increasing demand for more land for
agricultural use and for wood products used in construction
worldwide.

ACTIVE AND PASSIVE

English classes: Use active because it is more
informative
Sciences: Use passive because it is more
objective
Booth et al:

Use

old before new because it is clearer.

Use active sentences and first-person subjects for
original actionsWe/I claim, suggest, argue, show,
conclude, design, solve, prove
Use passive verbs to describe a process that anyone
can repeatscientific or experimental procedures

COMPLEXITY LAST
Begin sentences with familiar information
End sentences with complex, new information.
When:

When

you introduce a new technical term

When you present a unit of information that is long
and complex
When you introduce a concept that you intend to
develop in the text that follows

INTRODUCING TECHNICAL TERMS

An understanding of the role of calcium blockers in the
control of cardiac irregularity depends on understanding
of the calcium activation of muscle groups. The
regulatory proteins actin, myosin, tropomyosin, and
troponin affect the action of muscle fibers in the
sarcomere, the basic unit of muscle contraction.
Muscles contract when their cells are activated by
calcium. When heart muscles contract irregularly, we
can control them with drugs called calcium blockers.
Calcium blockers limit the action of muscle fibers in the
basic unit of muscle contraction, known as the
sarcomere. It consists of four proteins that regulate
contraction: they are actin, myosin, tropomyosin, and
troponin.

INTRODUCING WHAT FOLLOWS

A. The political situation changed, because disputes
over succession to the throne plagued seven of the eight
reigns of the Romanov Line after Peter the Great.
B. The political situation changed, because after Peter
the Great seven of the eight reigns of the Romanov line
were plagued by turmoil over disputed succession to the
throne.
C. The problems began in 1722, when Peter the Great
passed a law of succession that terminated the
principle of heredity and required the sovereign to
appoint a successor. But because many tsars, including
Peter, died before they named successors, those who
aspired to rule had no authority by appointment, and
so their succession was often disputed by lower-level
aristocrats. There was turmoil even when successors
were appointed.

OTHER REVIEW

Also check the following:

Sentence

length
Grammatical correctness
Remove unnecessary words; simplify and clarify
Coherence of paragraphs
Spelling
Punctuation
Proper capitalization, citation, quotes, spelling
numbers, formatting foreign words.
See http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ for more
formatting information.

REVIEW
1.
2.

3.
4.

5.

Express crucial actions in verbs

Make your central characters the subjects of
those verbs; keep those subjects short, concrete,
and specific
Begin sentences with familiar information
Use active sentences for things the writer does
(claim, conclude, propose) and passive sentences
to describe experimental procedures
Put complex information, new technical terms,
or introductions of following material last

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph

M. Williams. The Craft of Research. 3rd ed.
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008.